Improved performance can often be achieved in various electronic devices simply by cooling existing integrated circuit chips or modules. Greater enhancements have been demonstrated by incorporating superconducting materials that operate at cryogenic temperatures into circuit layouts. Obviously, such an approach requires cooling to very low (cryogenic) temperatures in order to use the superconducting materials effectively.
One typical cooling approach involves placing a circuit board in a vacuum enclosure called a dewar and then cooling the interior of the dewar to a cryogenic temperature. This approach helps to minimize external heat flow to the circuit board. This approach works for a single circuit board or a few circuit boards, and the increase in size and weight associated with the use of the dewar may be acceptable in certain applications. However, this approach generally cannot be used in various real-world applications, such as those with large arrays of circuit boards. In large arrays, the use of a single large dewar encapsulating the entire array or the use of smaller dewars encapsulating portions of the array dramatically increases the size, weight, and power (SWaP) requirements of the overall system, possibly beyond the available resources provided by a platform.